Girl found safe after going missing 21 hours at Samuel P. Taylor Park

While search teams combed Lagunitas Creek and the redwood forests of Samuel P. Taylor Park Saturday, searching for a 9-year-old girl who had been missing overnight, two women out for a morning bike ride on the Cross Marin Trail heard a little girl crying out for her mother. It turned out to be missing Ida Rothschild, tired, hungry, but safe and unhurt.

"She told them she'd been lost all night long and that she never stopped to sleep. She'd just been hiking all night long," said Marin County Sheriff's Lt. Doug Pittman.

The unidentified bike riders, both from the San Geronimo Valley, called 911 by cell phone shortly before 9 a.m., saying they had found the child, who had wandered away from her family's campsite at about noon on Friday and couldn't find her way back.

Reunited at the park office with her relieved and overjoyed parents, Antonio and Brenna Rothschild, her tearful mother asked, "Ida, where have you been?" Sounding slightly exasperated, Ida answered, "Mom, I'm fine."

The little girl was checked out by paramedics at the scene and found to be in good shape, except for a few scratches on her arms ang legs from walking all night in the Redwoods. Hungry, she ate some fruit and drank a bottle of water.

"She was in good spirits," Pittman said.

She had on pink tennis shoes, orange leggings, a knit cap and a pink terrycloth pullover.

Pittmen said it was enough to keep her comfortable overnight, when temperatures dropped into the low 40s.

The bike riders found her about 1.5 miles west of the family's campsite, just outside the boundary of the park. She was taken back to the search headquarters in the park by a four-wheel drive truck, ending a massive effort by 240 trained searchers from the Marin County Sheriff's office, the state park and Marin County Fire departments. About 40 inmates under the supervision of the California Department of Corrections also aided in the search. Cal Fire and the California Highway Patrol contributed a couple of helicopters and other aircraft.

"We kept 90 to 100 people searching through the hours of darkness," Pittman said, noting that searchers were aided by clear skies and a full moon, conditions that also helped the little girl as she walked the rugged terrain until daylight. The family stayed the night in a cabin provided by the state park.

The girl, her parents and two brothers, ages 2 and 5, had been on vacation in Marin from Santa Fe, New Mexico, They visited Muir Beach on Thursday, the first time the kids had seen the ocean, and were camping in one of the upper campgrounds at the state park on Friday afternoon when Ida disppeared. The parents last saw her playing with other children and searched a little more than an hour on their own before calling the Marin sheriff's office.

Pittman said he had also called in a team of sheriff's detectives to investigate the disappearance in the event Ida hadn't been found.

Afer the girl was back with her family, her father said, "This is the best Father's Day present ever."